Sentimental education in F major
by Eilisande
Summary: As Galavant and Richard head for Richard's castle, Richard realizes that a unicorn is following them. His virginity makes him more and more uncomfortable. If only Galavant could make him a seducer to scare this damn unicorn! Season 2.


Happens at the end of episode 2 of season 2, before Richard discovers the disappearance of his castle. I tried to develop the idea of a Richard on the ace spectrum and to push to the end the absurdity of unicorns, especially as they are explained in the series.

This is a translation of one of my text, I hope it's good. I will never again try to translate a song !

-.-.-.-

It was a beautiful spring morning as the dew evaporates (ie, approximately nine o'clock in the morning), as a poet from Valencia had so poetically said. Two travellers were crossing the said campaign. The first had the proud step and the proud face of a hero. The second, despite his luxurious beard and embroidered doublet, had the hunted look of a wanted man. He kept returning to observe the wood behind them.

"For the sake of ...," screamed Galavant at last, "Richard, you make me crazy. Would you stop turning over and over again! You have perfectly repaired shoes, a new sword and we have food for days. What's so interesting there? Did you forget something in the village?"

"Nothing, absolutely nothing," replied Richard, his voice uncertain. "I just thought..."

"What?"

"I have the impression ... that we are followed."

A hand on his sword, Galavant turned around and watched with attention the shades under the trees and every shivering grass. He finally broke out with a relieved laugh and sheathed his sword before resuming his way.

"There is no one between us and this village. Just a white horse in a field."

Richard blanched and hastened his pace.

"Very well, I was wrong. Let's go. The further we will be from this village at nightfall, the better."

Galavant hit him on the shoulder with a slap that was meant to be friendly but almost knocked him down.

"That is a good mentality and I'm happy to see it! No more jeremiads, here you are a true adventurer! All you need is to smell like one, to have the presence of one and soon we'll see you with a girl in each arm!"

The hero did not notice Richard's grimace behind him. They resumed their march towards Richard's castle, followed at a distance by an immaculate unicorn. Richard was perfectly aware that she was following them but no longer dared to turn around to see if she was closer. Right or wrong, he was ashamed of this shadowing.

He managed not to broach the subject that concerned him for four heroic hours before breaking. Three times the two travellers had stopped to drink water from a well or a spring, and every time shepherdess and peasants girls and dreamy-eyed shepherds had gathered to gaze at Galavant and sigh behind him. Richard might as well have been his horse. They would not have given him more attention. Even if he had worn his crown and his finest clothes, these plebeians would still have only seen the muscular chest of the suntanned knight, perfectly highlighted by his wet shirt that stuck to his chest. At the fourth stop, and at the fifteenth damsel, who slipped her cottage number into the top of Galavant's boot, Richard snapped.

Of course, he did it with the subtlety of a town crier at a funeral vigil. He snatched the bucket Galavant was holding and dragged him as far as possible from the crowd of his admirers.  
"All right, I'm tired of it. How are you doing it and could you stop? Please, leave some for others!"  
Galavant glanced at him blankly.

"What are you talking about?"

"All this seduction," Richard said with a vague gesture toward the peasants. "You drink and ten stupid peasants throw themselves at your feet. You enter a bar and they beg you in song to drop your shirt and your jacket. How do you do it?"

The hero looked more closely at the gathering and he nodded, finally understanding.  
"I did not even notice. People tend to behave like that around me. It's my natural charm."  
Richard gritted his teeth. He wanted to throw himself to the hero's throat, but their program was already struggling to take off and it would be worse if he killed this fop and the series was renamed "Richard".  
"I hate you and your perfect cheekbones and your perfect smile. How can this be so easy for you and so hard for me? You seduced Madalena just by smiling at her and holding out a bouquet of daisies while all my gold and love was not enough."

"I must have what you lack," Galavant boasted, swelling his chest like a peacock.

"Tough steel muscles?"

"Yes, but above all, I'm suave. Women - and men - love a good poise, and charm. You have to know how to be loving in the slightest of your actions. We must give the other the impression that he or she is the most admirable jewel on which we could put our eyes and that we are lucky to have it and not the opposite."

"And that's how you seduced Madalena and Isabella?"

Having seen Galavant's kiss with the second, Richard was sceptical. Galavant nodded negatively.  
"No, I managed to seduce Madalena because she loves sex and gifts and I seduced Isabella despite the fact that I'm a fool. I am good at seducing, less good at making people fall in love."

Richard had always wanted to be in love. It had to be fantastic to hold hands, kiss and eat in the same room without being insulted. And doing "it" had to be phenomenal. Yes, he was eager to be in love. To do "it" without being in love had to be bland like bread without pork fat.  
On the other hand ... There was this devilish unicorn, ready to ridicule him. Seduction without feelings would be enough.

"Galavant, teach me how to seduce someone," he cried, seizing him by the shoulders.  
The hero sighed, rubbing his ears. All the peasants were looking in their direction.

"If you want, but not here, those people already see you as a pathetic man. All right, I'll teach you. With a little luck, we still have time for sequence before the end of the episode. If it's too bad, they will cut it."

Galavant passed an arm over Richard's shoulders, dragged him towards the road and began to sing.

-To start you'll have to

start trusting in you,

you have to bend your torso,

and stop to go slow

Look after your look

If you want them to look.

Smile with all you teeth

and show them your wreath

The woman beggin to purr,

show her your ardor

The guy has a dreamy eye,

so please don't be shy

If she has a shining eye,

if he comes out of his shell,

the thing is almost done,

so just jump in the bed.

-But once in bed how to be good?

So inexperienced, I'll fail.

-To be deflowered at fifty

is certainly not easy,

but we can find you

a woman who don't flew,

who love your silver locks

or maybe an old man

with everything working well

to lift your legs to heaven

in a licentious moment.

I will not take gloves,

you are a beginner.

It will be a disaster,

you will shake for sure,

I too was afraid:

you do not get good in one night.

You need to have patience

before you gain insurance

and talent is good also

if you want to do the tango.

Galavant stopped to catch his breath.

"Let's stop the singing, this hill climb has exhausted me. I cannot sing anymore like when I was twenty."

"You don't say ... Sometimes, I have a stitch after a few notes.

"We'll pose at the next well. Besides, it may be an opportunity to test the theory to practice."

Richard's stomach remained tied up until they reach the well. He wasn't ready. He listened attentively to each of Galavant's advice, but soon they became entangled in his head. He had to smile, okay, but how? And what did that mean, laugh in a sexy way? Richard knew the Machiavellian laughter, the "I know my joke is bad, but laugh with me or I make you all die" laugh, the "I pretend to appreciate you but I plot your assassination" laugh and the "please, do not do not kill me" laugh, but not the sexy laugh. If at least he had been able to train in front of a mirror, but no, his teacher wanted him to do practical work straight away. He was bad at this kind of exercise. It had taken him six six-hour sessions to learn how to put his sword in his scabbard without dropping it when he was little. His brother had spent all this time mocking him. The memory continued to embarrass him today and now Galavant was speaking of swords and scabbards as a metaphor for "the thing". Now, Richard was sure to make a fool of himself.

When they arrived in sight of a well where half a dozen shepherdess were feeding their flocks, Galavant gave Richard their two empty gourds and pushed him slightly forward.  
"I taught you the basics, now go champion and make us proud!"

Richard walked to the well, trying to ignore the sweat running along his spine and the contents of his stomach that were threatening to go out. He breathed, put his royal smile on his lips and approached the shepherdesses. All was going well. He opened his mouth to repeat Galavant's approaching phrase "If I had known that such beauties were hiding in the shade of a well, I would have left my castle for a long time to quench my thirst".

One of the girls giggled while looking at him. Richard forgot his line. He opened his mouth but instead of a sweet remark, he uttered three words with the most serious and menacing voice.  
"Well, well, well. "

"Well, it was a disaster."

"I know," sighed Richard, sitting on the floor, his head in his hands.

"I have never seen anyone sabotage themselves like that. I didn't know it was possible. I mean, your opening sentence was not very bright, too threatening, but you could still make up for it. A bad start is a classic for beginners."

Richard moaned.

"I am pathetic."

"A little," Galavant said cheerfully. "Especially when you slipped and you almost broke your neck on the edge of the well. But again, you could have saved the situation."

"Really?"  
It seemed rather unlikely. One of the peasant women passed near them with her flock. She giggled and even her goats seemed to make fun of Richard.

"Women sometimes take someone by pity," Galavant clarified without any consideration for what was left of the king's ego. "Well, maybe not when you explain to them that you helped your wife to find opportunities to cheat on you, without even realizing it. Do not say that, ever again. You would only attract more Madalenas."

Terrifying perspective. Richard whined again.

"So I'm definitely screwed."

"No. We will do a second test later, with fewer people. Learning to seduce is like learning to ride, you have to go back up after the fall otherwise you risk being too scared to start again."

"I already am."

"Yes, I saw that, especially when you put your head in the bucket so that nobody could see how red you were."

They sat on the slope for a long time, staring at the sheep. The last shepherdesses left with their flocks, no doubt to spread Richard's shame.

"Why this sudden obsession to become a charmer?" Galavant finally asked. "It's not just because Madalena is stuck in your head. Did something happen in the village? Did someone make fun of you? You should have told me, I would have taken care of it."

Richard did not have the time to answer. With a devastating sense of timing, the unicorn appeared on the horizon. She whinnied and reared to make her horn glow in the sun. There was no chance that Galavant wouldn't ask questions. The hero frowned as his eyes went back and forth between the unicorn and her victim.

"I just want her to stop following me," Richard confessed. "I'm sure it amuses her. I had never been ashamed to be a virgin before she came. Okay, it's a secret that I did not want to see spreading, but I was not ashamed either. Why is she doing that? I'm sure it amuses her."

"I imagine she was at the fair?," sighed Galavant without mocking him. "These unicorns are the worst thing ever, but the kids love them and it makes more money than the bears to the showmen. What did his trainer say exactly?"

"He said that unicorns are attracted to people of pure body. He went on to say that it meant those who had never been with a woman."

"To sleep with a man will do nothing, good to know. If that had been the case we might have been able to solve the problem easily. Strangely most unicorns have no problem with male homosexuality, on the contrary. On the other hand, they hate lesbians."

"What?"

The conversation took a turn that left Richard speechless.

"Real pests I tell you. I lost my virginity at fifteen because I wanted one of these parasites to stop following me. I had a great time but in retrospect, I should not have. I was still lacking a little maturity and hindsight and I could go back, I would have waited. I even knew a lady knight who was constantly followed by nine unicorns. She loved making love with men but because of her escort, she was nicknamed the White Maid. No man dared to approach her for fear of her losing her nickname. Her few lovers knew they would not be taken seriously if they told the truth. She ended up finding a pretty washerwoman and she slept with her in the middle of the woods without ever stopping to fix these dirty nags. They left her alone after that. She was no longer pure."

"But that makes no sense. Why would it be impure to have slept with a woman and not with a man?"

"There are animals, even if they're magical ones. In their eyes, it must make sense. They like women to be pure in body and mind so they love virgin men because they have never touched women."

"And you do not find an old virgin of fifty years ridiculous? You advise me to do like this lady?"

"No. Richard, you're a sincere and honest guy behind your big voice and despite the fact that you've been the worst king of the Seven Kingdoms. One night stands are not for you. You're a great romantic. Don't force yourself to sleep right and left because a unicorn puts you under pressure. And even if you're in love, do not force yourself to do it. Sex is not the condition of love, it is only one of its possible components. Reject anyone who would tell you otherwise. Understood?"  
Richard only managed to shake his head, still stunned, but also somewhat relieved to hear this speech. These last words especially took a great weight of his chest and the stomach. "Doing it" suddenly seemed a lot less terrifying. It was just something to try to see if he liked, like a new crown.

"Well, said Galavant getting up. "Now we must hurry, go to your castle and then save Isabella. But when we're done, I promise you we'll go back to the Forbidden Forest. I guarantee you that this trash will be too happy there to continue following you. And until then, I'll be happy to loudly proclaim that I am the virgin and that I reserve myself for Isabella. I know myself good enough in bed not to feel threatened in my masculinity. Besides, the second part is not a lie."

Moved to tears, Richard rushed into Galavant's arms. The unicorn neigh encouragement.

"Go die in a fire," Galavant threatened her, trying to get away from Richard.


End file.
